


Personality Intelligence Networking Emulator

by Pineflower



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Character Death, Original Character - Freeform, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Portal 2 - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-10-29 06:18:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10848195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pineflower/pseuds/Pineflower
Summary: A survivor of the 7 Hour War, Quin was trying to escape aliens by driving to the north of her home, only to get stopped and dragged into an underground facility. Now, stuck in Aperture under GLaDOS's command and under the new name P.I.N.E., she must figure out how to survive this new scenario.





	1. Chapter One

_**Mile 286.** _

It was the only little sign that stood out against the seemingly endless field of glowing wheat and in a flash it was gone.

Car rides had always been painfully long as a kid, but this one was even longer. Driving alone through the largest field on the face of the planet was definitely not [Redacted]’s idea of fun and what made it worse was what she was leaving behind. Aliens, monstrous creatures, had been unleashed and killed thousands, leaving behind nothing more than rubble and ruin. Her parents hadn’t made it out and her friends did everything, but in the end, all that could be done was to jump in her car and slam on the gas.

It had been a one way ticket.

Now the only chance of survival was to drive north and hope that the alien outbreak hadn’t made it that far. At least, out in the middle of nowhere, nothing was going to stop you. Unless the wheat planned on throwing her car off the road, Quin was safe.

The looming facility had definitely been a shocker.

Every now and then, she passed by small, empty homes and sheds that stood out of the wheat like a rain cloud on a sunny day. This giant building had definitely been a surprise. The ground out here was flat so she saw it coming from miles away, but the closer it got, the larger it became. By the time she reached the outside of it, the sun was almost out of the sky, leaving the building only illuminated by the sliver of moonlight.

Whatever this place was, it was definitely abandoned. The walls were crumbling with age and the parking lot looked like a puzzle. Cracked beyond repair. The windows- the few that were there- were shattered and no light shone from inside. And this place continued on for ages. It had been seen from a long ways away and it looked like it stretched for miles. It was mainly one building. Occasionally, it had more floors stacked on top or smaller buildings off to the side, but one very noticeable thing was the barbed wire fence that ran around the whole place.

That was something that spiked her curiosity.

Quin didn’t have long to ponder over what on earth this place could be when her whole car jolted as it ran something over. She didn’t stop to check what it was. Yet while what she ran over didn’t follow her, fear did and the car began to accelerate.

At this point, the light had gone from the sky and the moon wasn’t doing much to help. The headlights only illuminated a few feet ahead and the dim light of the clock on the dash wasn’t helping her nerves.

Then came another bump. Than other.

Quickly, her lights were turned onto a brighter setting which resulted in a scream of horror and jolting the wheel to the sharp left.

 

In the way was an alien, twice the size of the car with a hard blue shell that was resistant to any bullet. It’s arms were giant and to add to the horror, it shot lasers of some kind. There had been only a few back where she had come and they crushed cars like ants, leaving the occupants dead in seconds…and this one had spotted her.

Quin had done her best to speed away, get out before that thing could get to her, but fate wanted her to follow her dead peers.  Agitated by the light, it didn’t take long for the alien to catch up and grab the rear end of the car, slamming its fist into the top before chucking it through the nearby fence and onto the cracked pavement of the facilities parking lot. Unable to do anything, the human inside just let out shrieks of fear, trying to avoid the shards of glass that fell in through the broken windows or the warped pieces of metal. Yet, the onslaught didn’t stop till the rubble that had been a car was picked up and slammed, front first onto the ground repeatedly. The lights sparked and shattered, light leaving the area and the sound of metal groaning under the force of being crushed was followed with futile yells for help. Yet the massive alien did not seize its onslaught. Once the car had been crushed down to nothing more than a pile of scrap, it was dropped to the pavement.

 

The screams had stopped.

 

The alien finally turned and lumbered off into the darkness that was night and the wreck of a car stood still. Yet there was still life.

A hand shakily reached out of one of the holes in the rubble, clawing at the ground and pulling forward. Slowly, Quin pulled herself out of the wreck and a trail of crimson followed. The car was falling apart at the hinges and one piece of long metal had disconnected from the rest of the cars skeleton and thrust itself through her abdomen. The majority of it had passed through, but it was jutting out of her back in a odd manner. Vital organs were more than likely pierced and breathing was getting increasingly difficult. Everything HURT. Yet, she moved away from the crash and towards the building she had been thrown at, eventually collapsing and looking up awkwardly at the collapsing wall of the facility. Humans fate must have been sealed to be slaughtered by aliens, and even those who escaped the first onslaught were no exception. Aliens would wipe out humans.

So this is how I die. Because of aliens like everyone else.

It was a bitter thought. Death would come out in the middle of nowhere beside some giant crumbling facility due to a rampaging alien. Red leaked from every area of her body and she laughed dryly, only to be cut off by coughs of blood.

And soon after, her eyes slipped shut. The pain slowly slipped away and she fell into darkness, but before unconsciousness took over, she swore she heard someone or something say,

“Thank you for assuming the party escort submission position.”


	2. Chapter Two

The air was too sterile when consciousness gripped Quin and shook her hard back into reality.

First to come back was the pain. It covered every part of her body where glass and metal had sliced though. Her torso was in the most agony though, pain radiating every time a breath was taken. She was too dizzy to try and move due to how much blood she had lost after the wreck.

Then came her sight. Slowly, her eyes slid open to look around. Pain didn’t allow her to see much though. While she had expected the open sky, possibly clouds and the crumbling pavement, instead she found a room with a domed ceiling, panels jutting out with small lights gleaming at the end of them. It almost felt like those lights were watching her. Curiosity and pain were fighting for priority and despite the confusion of where on earth she was, pain was slowly winning…

Till the face appeared in her vision.

It was less of a face and more of a faceplate, one golden eye peering down from the center of it. Behind it laid a maze of wires and metal that connected it to the ceiling. Seeing Quin awake, the optic narrowed and got a bit closer, giving a oddly cold glow over the human. This thing was sentient. Not knowing what this machine was or what it was doing resulted in Quin letting out a weak scream that ended in blood bubbling out of her throat. There was no strength for the human to fight or run from the thing above her so all she could do was squint into the golden light above her.

The machine stared for a moment before slowly shifting out of sight and giving a clear view of the ceiling again.

Now that she was awake, though something told Quin she wouldn’t be up for long, she noticed something. The metal in her abdomen was gone. It was obvious now that she thought about it. It had been jutting out her back and now she was lying on her back…so was this thing helping her? Maybe it’s saving my life…?

Her thoughts were cut off when she noticed a panel right above her shift out of the way and a couple dozen wires lower out of the hole. All she could do was watch, but slowly, a new feeling of dread grew and she helplessly observed as they dropped down towards her. Most of them had nothing on them. A couple others had needles. One of them had a large metal clasp of some sort, big enough to fit around her head.

The fear grew.

For another moment, the wires continued to hang there, looking dead above the human… till they all shot out in different directions. The ones with a lack of anything on the end wrapped themselves around her and whatever surface she was on, successfully holding her down and adding a whole new layer of panic. She hadn’t been able to move much out of pain, but this ensured she wouldn’t be moving at all.

Then she felt pricks. It was barely noticeable against the aches of previous injuries, but they were there. A couple on her arms and one that stayed up above her. What they were for was a mystery at first, but slowly she began to feel drowsy. Tired. Craving the release of unconsciousness.

Even still, panic was bubbling in her chest and she wished to be able to struggle, yet nothing responded. Her limbs were limp and held down and her head could only stare up at the ceiling weakly. Staring at the final wire- the one with the odd clasp- as it came down and fitted itself around her head. It clasped on and it was certainly not coming off.

That thing did not want Quin to move.

And Quin was scared.

The reality that she had no clue where she was, what was happening or who that machine is was sending her terrifying feelings and she wished to scream. To struggle. To do anything that she would do under normal circumstances.

 

[Transfer Initiated. Beginning start up protocol. Finding and following heart rate.

Transfer shall begin in…two minutes]

 It was a male voice, obviously automated, but she was less worried about the voice and more worried about what he had meant. Transfer? Transfer to what?!

It was getting much harder to follow a train of thought. Whatever had been injected was slowly dragging Quin into a lulled state of mind and it was almost painful to THINK at this point. Yet the fear remained, spiking at every little thing.

[30. 29. 28. 27-]

**“You must be in a lot of pain right now.”**

It was a different voice this time. It covered the male voice as he counted down the last remaining seconds before this ‘transfer’. Female, it echoed out in a powerful manner around the chamber, sending chills down the wires and from there down the human’s spine. Who…? Who said that?

Then slowly, the golden eye reappeared in view, glaring down coldly. **“You lost a lot of blood. That wreck really did a number on you. Yet…this will still be a good test."  
**

[10. 9. 8-]

**“You must be in a lot of pain right now.”**

[7. 6. 5. 4-]

**“So trust me.”**

[3. 2. 1.]

 

**“This is going to hurt MUCH worse.”**

 

 


	3. Chapter Three

It had been _EXCRUCIATING._

Every nerve was on fire, shocks of electricity radiating pain through every limb.  Quin could hear herself screaming. Her throat was growing raw from how long she had been letting out distressed noises. Eyes couldn’t focus on anything and eventually squeezed shut in a pathetic attempt to stop the pain. Yet she couldn’t move. There was no way to get away from the wires that were jabbing into her skin. Even what she guessed was sedatives didn't help in the slightest.

The worst thing was, Quin had no clue what was going on.

Then everything stopped.

It still felt like she was laying down, but the pain had subsided and all it left was a mild headache at most. Her throat didn’t even feel raw anymore. In fact, it almost didn’t feel like she was BREATHING. That made panic set back in. Her first thought was, ‘Am I dead?!’ Yet some little part of her said that she was still alive, just not awake- at least not fully. Actually, she wasn’t sure what she was at this point.

Yet nothing came. No pain, no vision, just the darkness.

After a bit, Quin tried to move. Like earlier, she couldn’t move, but she found that she COULD look around this black space she was in. Nothing there. Woah what a shocker. She laughed a bit bitterly to herself. So she couldn’t move, couldn’t see and had no idea what was going on. It was a nightmare…or maybe she was actually dead.

That was a dark thought.

So she waited for awhile, staring into the void and hoping that something would show up. A voice maybe? Movement of her limbs would be good too or…

_A light._

A small, orange, flashing light.

It had appeared suddenly, right in front of the humans face, flashing on and off repeatedly. ‘What on earth…Is that?’ Her question didn’t take long to answer. A few more flashes passed before it began to move across Quins line of vision, a trail of glowing orange letters and words following behind it. It looked a lot like code. No- It WAS code. Dozens of words flashed by too quickly to read before disappearing and dropping her back into darkness for a moment. Then, just as quickly as then the last text had gone, short glowing lines appeared which were read with confusion.

/Personality Intelligence Networking Emulator.exe (P.I.N.E)  
/ Transfer successful. Standby

/Core status: Offline  
//Would you like to power P.I.N.E. on? Y/N

And then the text stopped. The small little flashing bar had returned like a computer, waiting for input and all that could be done was to wait.

/….  
/Y

And then there was light.

Her eyes shot open, not focusing for a moment before finally shifting and pinpointing an area above to look at. The look of the room she was currently in said one thing though. She was still alive. It wasn’t the same room as earlier though. Instead of a domed ceiling with wires hanging down from a hole in the center, now it was a square room with bright white panels that covered the whole area. With a groan, she shifted and pushed herself into a sitting position, happy to find the binds removed. The rest of the room was exactly the same. White panels.  White ceiling. White floors. White walls. The only things that stuck out were the panel Quin had been lying on and a camera that jutted off of the wall. Its red optic stuck to the human the moment she sat up.

**“Ah good you’re awake.”**

Quin flinched and glared at the camera. It was the woman voice from earlier, cold and calculating. She was fairly certain it came from that giant robot that had been hovering over her before she passed out and she wasn’t sure how to feel about it.

The main emotion that wanted to pop up though was fear. Something in her mind said that the voice was something to be very afraid of.

**“Oh I hope you’re not mute after all that screaming. I don’t think I could live with ANOTHER mute in my facility.”**

Quin scoffed and shook her head. Even the fear wouldn't hold back the sarcasm.

“b_b_But of ccccourse I’m n-not mmmmute-e!”

Her face went from soft agitation to extreme confusion as her voice fluctuated and sounded almost glitch. A sigh echoed out from hidden speakers.

**“Well I suppose that I’ll have to fix your vocal processors. Under such short notice, I didn’t have time to fully program this body. Till then, please state the official Aperture greeting to waking test subjects.”**

“W-w-what on earthhhhh are you talk-alking  ab- _Hhhello and welcome tto the Aperture Science C-C-Computer Aided Enrichmennnnnnt center_.”

Quin cut off quickly, not knowing what came over her. She had repeated some unknown sentence that she had no idea where it came from and a quick glance at the camera showed all the confusion she could muster. “…W….what did you dooooo to m-e-e-…?”

The voice over the intercom had no hesitation in her answer.

**“You were going to die from your injuries and had little time and I was running low on testing subjects so I decided to use you even in your last moments. I transferred you to an artificial android body that I had been working on- lucky you- and programmed you for testing and for maintenance purposes. Your human AI will allow any testing results to be valid, but you can be rebuilt as well. I just need to finish any protocols to make sure this new body is working properly and then I’ll add any features that are missing.”**

“W-what…?! W-who even aaaare you?!”

**“My name is GLaDOS and I am the central AI core that runs this facility, Aperture Science.”**   
**You are the Personality Intelligence Networking Emulator …or Pine.”**

“…I… I…I d-don’t waaant this!”

GLaDOS laughed darkly.

**“Who said you had a choice?”**


	4. Chapter Four

The room was like a prison cell. White light shone onto white panels, making everything almost unbearable to look at. It seemed that GLaDOS was too busy to keep talking so She had left the girl in silence. It was unsettling. To keep her creeping anxiety at bay, Pine took a deep breath- though it was more forced than needed- and looked down at her hands. The staring camera was ignored.

She didn’t want to remind herself that she was being watched.

So she raised her hands, staring at them through narrowed eyes. While at first glance, everything seemed normal, a closer look revealed small lines where the joints were and the skin was far too smooth for a human. Old scars and birthmarks were gone. Erased from her skin like markings on paper. There once, now gone. It didn’t take much focusing on her hands to realize her eyes were definitely different too. She couldn’t see what she looked like now, but her eyes just felt off. They zoomed in and out like camera lens, focusing on what was in front of her. Paying closer attention brought small text in her vision to view. Most of it was small things like location, body temperature and something labeled functionality.

My name’s not even the same now…Pine?! What kind of name is that? It was a bitter thought, but nothing could be changed.

It was a new start, and Quin... Pine hated it.

Soon after, she went from bored to antsy to flat out irritated. GLaDOS had flat out left her alone to rot in this empty room and so she began to pace it. The panels were traced in hopes that one may lead to an exit. The camera was waved at to possibly get the AI’s attention. Yet nothing happened. She was locked in, still not fully sure of what was going to happen to her. With a hiss, Pine began circling the room. At first, it was meaningless wandering but soon she began attempting to shift the panels out of place and see if a way out would be right behind it.

None of them moved.

At least, not at first. Most of the panels seemed stationary, meant to be held in place, but it didn’t take long to notice one that seemed a bit different. While the others felt a bit thinner, this one held almost hallow, as if something were stuck inside or behind it. With a glance at the ever watching camera, Pine figured one thing. She’s not watching. I’m getting out.

Fingers dug into the sides of the panel, attempting to budge the solid surface away from the rest of the wall. It took time and Pine was shocked that GLaDOS never murmured a word to her while she worked, but eventually, the panel shifted and opened automatically, revealing two things. One was a control board that sat on the panel with some sort of plug in the center.  Unusable by her, but nice to know about. The second, which was what Pine wanted, was a catwalk. Hopefully, it would be a catwalk to freedom.

Without a second glance at the camera that had been supposedly watching her, Pine scrambled out of the room and onto the catwalk, choosing a direction to go without much thought.

Then she looked down.

“HOLY FU- Oooooh my god I am….REALLY high up. Ooookay let’s just…Don’t look down, don’t look down.”

Heights and her never seemed to mix.

Making sure to keep looking forward, Pine sprinted across the catwalk that stretched through the expanse of this facility. Test chambers hung suspended above the void, the only thing preventing them from falling was lift like structures. The rooms probably moved around, sliding across those. While this facility was definitely a bit terrifying, it was rather intriguing. It was gigantic, spanning for probably miles in each direction. And one thing that seemed to pop up a lot was one logo.

Aperture.

Aperture.

APERTURE.

Pine could only scoff. While this place was incredible, it was also currently her prison. There had to be a way out and something told her, it would be UP. She just had to keep running. She'd prefer to deal with more headcrabs over this place.

Back before she left her home, Pine never ran. Hated it actually. Hiking was a bit more her thing. She could take her time and not worry about getting too winded. With running, stamina ran out faster than she could deal with. Yet now, it felt like she had much more energy. Things now felt much stronger than they did before. While the ache of exhaustion from running was creeping up, it was coming very slowly, not hindering her much until she was far away from the chamber she had come from.

Finally, the android stumbled to a walk, taking in where she was.

The space had opened up a bit more and test chambers hung like seed pods, only shells of whatever was inside. There were hundreds of them dangling from above, but one chamber caught her eye. A cylinder building. It was huge, sitting right in the center of the expanse, stretching up and down to the top and bottom of the cavern. Glowing lights flickered on and off around the perimeter of it and dozens of wires spiraled out of the top like spider webs. Pine finally decided to stop. There were no rooms around and no cameras. She had to be safe here. Take a moment to catch her non-existent breath and look at this place while she could.

“I…I think I did it! I think I lost Her. Doubt she’ll notice me out here….”

**“Oh please. I noticed a LONG time ago.”**

With a screech, the android spun around, looking around frantically for the voice. Yet there was nothing. It just echoed out of unseen speakers, the icy tone freezing Pine to the spot.

**“Did you think you could escape me that easily? I can FEEL you running out there and trust me when I tell you, you’re going the wrong way.”**

Before there was any chance to run and escape, a claw shot down from the darkness above, clamping itself around her waist and yanking her into the air. It resulted in screams and squirming to try and escape. The claw slowly began to move back in the direction Pine had come from and no amount of struggle would loosen her bonds.

**“I suppose you ARE still human, aren’t you. You’re loud and a bigger pain than wanted…but I can remove some things. It’s all just programming now. Take out unneeded memories and connections to outside, take out the want to escape, add in final touches and trust me.**

**You’ll be perfect.”**


	5. Chapter Five

_Mainframe Android Prototype v9._

It was GLaDOS’s most recent and most tedious project. Getting a mechanical body to look human if one didn’t squint was a difficult task. Synthetic skin over dozens of wires and mechanical muscles. Small cracks where the skin would be too strained by movement to close up fully were all over the body. Only small things like that would make it obvious this body was fake. Yet the blueprints and coding finally allowed for the body to be successfully used. The issue was finding a candidate to test it.

The body held all the correct code to fully control Aperture without the issues of becoming corrupt. If it showed no signs of quick damages or faulty coding, GLaDOS could use it to become a mobile unit herself. There were no intentions of leaving the main chamber without extremely important reasons. It was just there as another option. Another shell to hold Her AI.

Yet she had to test it. The other models had failed early on in their development stages, but this one worked exactly as needed. GLaDOS just had to test to make sure everything in it worked, counting the body’s functionalities and code stability. She didn’t want to transfer into it, only for the code to overload and corrupt or damage her during the process.

The turrets wouldn’t work. They weren’t built to handle extreme amounts of code and putting one of them into a body like this would end up with them going corrupt with power far too quick. Using one of the cores was out of the question. There were plenty of them around, but with so many already corrupted, she didn’t want to risk another ‘Moron and Lunatic Incident’.

There were no humans here either. Without any humans around, there were no test subjects to use on things like this.  No test subjects meant no science being done. It was agitating. Her project, after so long of being worked on, had to come to a standstill.

Yet somehow, the gods of science smiled on her and gave her a gift.

The passage of time was barely noticed down in the depths of the facility. GLaDOS would work for weeks at a time without a passing glance at the clock on her optic. Yet when the outdoor security cameras on one of the old surface office buildings picked up movements, she had to notice the time.

[2:52 A.M.]

Maybe it was some deer or a passing tumbleweed.

Deciding to take a look, she was met with the normal darkness that could be seen through the old cameras, static filled footage. Yet there was something odd. Flickering lights were visible at the bottom corner and she slowly zoomed in to reveal what looked like fresh ruins of a car.

A quick playback of the footage revealed a dirtied, blue SUV shooting down the road with some large monstrous thing giving chase. In seconds, the car was caught and smashed into the lot. Very bitcrushed screams came from the footage till there was only silence. The large thing walked off and disappeared into the void beyond the cameras lens. Now, GLaDOS haad plenty of questions running through her code. What had that thing been, why was that human out here and so late too? Yet, that person was probably very dead now, judging by the damages done to the car.

She planned on moving away from that camera and getting back to one of her numerous tests, but sudden movement caught her attention. Whoever had been driving was still alive, albeit barely, and was dragging themselves out of the wreckage with bloodied hands. Even the darkness and the static couldn’t hide the large shard of metal that protruded from their abdomen. They were still alive.

 

They’d be PERFECT.

 

GLaDOS knew that this was her opportune moment to test her android prototype so without any second thoughts, she sent a bot out there to retrieve the human. She didn’t have much time.

The transfer had been rushed due to the human’s state, yet things went perfectly. Without any errors in transferring the humans consciousness from the damaged organic body to the mechanic one, GLaDOS got to work in changing some things while the humans mind fixated themselves to the code. Instead of leaving the body completely blank with no features, it was given some minor updates. An orange and black jumpsuit, some brown hair which was similar to the humans original body and a pair of boots.

May as well run this through a couple testing tracks to make sure it holds up well.

Surprisingly, she hadn’t expected the human to wake up and actually remember life before the transfer. They were rowdy, loud and not happy with the situation, yet in a way that made GLaDOS pleased. The human habits and nature would really test the boundaries of a body built to function like that of a humans.

And slowly an idea grew. If the body held up and showed that it would work under an actual human’s control, she could use them to test. The results would be valid since they’re still technically a human. It could also be used to Her advantage like being able to go to areas that the nanobots and maintenance claws couldn’t reach. Another way of keeping the facility in top condition.

They could even work as a backup in case another Moron happens to appear someday.

It’d require some changes in code like putting up locks so most of the facility could be controlled in case of emergency, but not all of it and memories would have to be erased to get rid of any attachments to the surface. Last thing GLaDOS needed was an android with Aperture’s code getting to the surface and falling into Black Mesas hands.

A way of preventing them from getting out, just in case, needed to be implemented too. Maybe a force shutdown if they get too far from one of the exits. Add that chip so they can also receive orders and can be controlled manually if needed. Let them do the work and if they try to get out of doing what I need, make them. Even their human consciousness can’t override my programming.

The body had been built for GLaDOS, yet she was growing more excited with how it was being used. Another body could be built for her.  She built one, another could come later. This one could continue being used by this human.

 

For science.


End file.
